Frontal cortex emesis between novels.

Category Archives: Dreams

I dreamt last night that I had died, & God assigned me the task of noting & categorizing the sins of the newly dead by going through something like a highlight (or is it lowlight?) reel of their lives.

I was sitting in front of what seemed like some kind of AVID rig & going through The Tapes. Thankfully, it was not my job to count cruelty to children or sexual assault or anything like that. My particular “beat” was cruel things said.

That’s right; words do hurt.

But what was interesting is I was meant to establish context. The final tallies ended up in Degrees that, no joke, ranged from School Yard Silliness (eg. “YOU’RE a poopiehead”) to The Dozens (eg. “Yo mama so fat…”) to Almost Kind of Hitler. I won’t repeat any of that.

My instructions were quite clear. No one was to be marked down for saying words they didn’t know the meaning to, for repeating what others said with the intent to convey information, or for words that didn’t actually hurt anyone even if maybe another person who had no context heard them & found them offensive. My angelic supervisor was adamant that offense was not the same as pain.

Lies were also considered hurtful words.

And yes, anything that had been confessed was wiped from the tapes, so I wouldn’t even have seen them. I figured out fairly quickly who had ever been to confession & who hadn’t by the amount of gaps in their reel.

I was told that each evaluation then gets combined with other evaluations & a Judgement is rendered from the full report. Some of you would be surprised by who did poorly.

It struck me upon waking that this was a terrible job, & I am certain that God doesn’t do it that way. It also struck me upon waking that there are people alive in the world today on social media & elsewhere who have made this their job. They don’t get paid for it, but they quite literally scour people’s online history to find anything they’ve said that might be deemed hurtful or offensive or even slightly dodgy.

The difference is, they don’t give a damn about context. The Dozens becomes misogynist fat shaming. Teenagers calling each other the fringe words of their culture becomes racism & homophobia. People with self deprecating senses of humour are judged to be racist, body-shaming, or all number of things.

There are some people who really are quite awful online. That’s different. But finding the awful people has spawned something of a crusade to “get” others, with quite ridiculous results.

I always wonder if people are paid to take things out of context. Because in the context of a person’s entire life, what Skeeter McTweeter said on MySpace when he was 13 is not going to be the same thing he says on Twitter at 23. At least, one hopes not.

What someone drunk Tweets with friends at 24 is not the same thing she thinks at 34 with two children.

What someone said repeatedly over the course of a few recent months might be an established pattern of actual belief. If people employed common sense more often, this would be evident.

And yet here we are. I kind of wish knitting were still a thing everyone did. Keeps their hands busy. Less drama. More blankets.

I don’t want to live in a world where we police each other’s thoughts. If you say something I think is gross & we are not friends, I’ll just unfollow you. How’s that? If we’re friends, we’ll talk about it.

Simple.

But now that everybody’s a gotcha journalist/investigator, it can’t be that simple. It needs to be A Thing. “On October 14, 2008, you bought a pumpkin spice latte & made a shitty comment about white women.”

I am trying to remember my dream from last night because I know it was Significant. I fell asleep in tearful prayer (apparently the glutening is still a thing, despite my slight improvement in symptoms), and I prayed to remember anything told me. But it seems I have been shown things instead (which happens).

I can’t remember the beginning at all, but eventually it seemed to unfold that I worked at a thrift store run by the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles. We were all of us encouraged to shop there, too, so we did. I think my Facebook friend Eric was my coworker somehow.

I had been looking through make-up (something I would never buy used) when a girl (maybe Meghan from Reno?) brought me an empire-waisted blue top with 3/4 lace cuffed sleeves. It seemed cute to me in the dream, so I tried it on. It didn’t quite fit over my clothes. She found another that was more of an Easter green & that was a little too big, but quite comfortable. Everybody thought it looked really good although I looked pregnant.

I had no time to take it off because Bishop Diane was visiting. She set her shoes (shearling-lined wooden clogs with a bit of a heel) aside & asked me to try them on in front of everybody. They were comfortable, but I felt like something was off. I touched the top of my head, which was sticky.

I went into a bathroom & there was dried dirt caked on my face (that I assumed came from the top I was wearing) & it looked like a bird had crapped fuchsia glitter slime onto the top of my head. I could see it & feel it, but nobody else noticed it. I was pointing it out to people, but nobody could see it.

Suddenly I was in a subway station and Jimmie was hovering over the far platform in the lotus position. “Everything I have said is as it is,” he intoned with a smile, which is interesting, because in the real world, he has been trying to help me understand something.

Then the “screen” of my mind went blank, and the cat flew in with an envelop & a wax stamp.

He stamped the envelop with an elaborate, pretty black seal & handed it to me, saying in a kitty voice “Here!” Then I distinctly heard Jesus say, “This is my official seal; these were your answers. Wake up.”

And I did.

The seal was a very wispy, delicate version of this, but in a circle with some leafy looking embellishments:

To say that I am confused is an understatement. I am also really tired. Jesus wanted me to only get 6 hours of sleep (well, Him & the cat).

It happened again. I dreamt a thing & then a version of it happened the next day.

I dreamt I was still working at the hospital in Reno, but was stuck in traffic more indicative of Los Angeles than northern Nevada. I moved slowly forward & accidentally bumped a cop car in front of me. My dreams are very real, so I felt the bump (akin to hitting a curb gently when you parallel park) in addition to the adrenaline rush when the cop in the driver’s seat emerged with gun drawn.

I had my window down so I put my hands up & shouted out “Unintentional!” He approached me (very Reno, thick mustache & belly) with the gun still up but said “Good. Exactly the right way to behave.” He lowered the gun slightly & asked me to exit the vehicle.

The two plain clothes officers he was traveling with at this time went through my glove box for my paperwork & patted me down. Meanwhile I was explaining that it was Take Your Cat To Work Day & I was distracted by Neil’s yowling & I was very sorry & felt super stupid.

One of the plain clothes emerged from the rear of the car with a carrier that contained the yowling Neil. “Take Your Cat to Work Day?”

I shrugged. “It’s not an intelligent department.”

The uni drove my car into the “station” (log cabin) conveniently located right next to the road (where the Hell’s Angel house is in actual Reno, if I remember correctly) & they detained me & asked me some questions while Neil chased some chickens around (even Reno doesn’t have chickens in the police department in reality).

I was apparently so charming & entertaining that they let me go.

Fast forward to my actual driving to work in the real, waking world. Not 500 meters from my house, in a line of abominable LA traffic, my car lurched forward ever so gently. It felt like the engine revved or knocked or something, so I looked for a light on the dash, looked to see if the gear slipped, turned off the radio & air to listen. Nothing.

Idiotically I started looking around the inside of the car to see what caused it, & then I saw my rear view mirror. I had since edged a little forward as the traffic had moved about a meter, and in the mirror was a white Prius, & in the white Prius was a slim young woman in huge sunglasses making wild gestures at her steering wheel. It was interesting enough that I watched her for a while before the light turned green & I was able to finally go. I noted that she was texting while also flailing.

It was about 5 minutes later I realized she had hit me, exactly with the same almost-nothing force that I hit the cop car in my dream. And I had let her go, not because her flail-texting behind the wheel was entertaining, but because I genuinely hadn’t figured out what happened.

When I got to work, I checked the bumper & she hadn’t damaged it at all. I did not notice any damage on her bumper when she was behind me. So that was the strange, short tale of the bump.
I say “again” because the last dream I posted here also came true-ish, in that I was lost in Pasadena (where Christopher lives) in a mall & the surrounding construction looked exactly like the Pirates of the Caribbean construction in the dream. I turned to my sister & said “I have intense déjà vu right now,” & then realized why.

And also because this has been happening to me since I was 9 or 10. But many of you already knew that.

Last night I was unceremoniously woken at 4:30AM by a vomiting cat. I had to pee so I got up & stepped in the vomit, which necessitated cleaning my feet & making it impossible to just drop back to sleep.

My friend Christopher turned me on to this fan fic, which you know was no small undertaking because, well. Um. Cough. But this is Christopher. He knows things. Anyhow, I’m hooked.

Subsequently I dreamt that Christopher & I were visiting w/ his school friends. He is working on a PhD in physics in Los Angeles, but in the dream it was an undergrad in Engineering from UNR. His friends lived in a part of town that was already known to be enchanted, but thanks to overzealous Disney development had become possessed of evil spirits.

It was an unholy mess. Disney was building a Pirates of the Caribean themed shopping center in Reno, which is the last place anything like that should happen, & also something like that should never happen. Ancient tortured souls now infested the shopping center. Christopher’s friends lived adjacent.

I drove over there with my actual real life roommate & Christopher, pointing out along the way all the times I had seen actual gnomes in this neighbourhood when I lived there, before Disney chased them all out. When we parked, I spotted a stone gnome & dragged Christopher over to a stand of trees to see that they were real. Christopher shrugged, said that there was probably a scientific explanation, & I patted the stone gnome on the head & told Christopher he was undoubtably right. Stone gnomes don’t talk, so the little guy smiled & went back to being a statue.

Christopher’s friends were two blonde girls who had both made foods Christopher & I can’t eat (him, nuts; me, celiac disease). They said that we were pussies if we didn’t at least try, but Christopher talked them out of it (& apologized to me out the side of his mouth). I mean it was a frigging nut cake, walnuts & wheat. My roommate made up for us by eating a bunch.

Christopher wanted to have a word with these girls, so he left me alone in the kitchen. My roommate went with him part way. I saw a leather bag on a chair & went to move it to sit down, but the second I touched it, it turned into Persephone, who has just died in real life, & I held her & sobbed & told her I missed her while stroking her. Christopher came out, saw I was crying, & asked what was wrong. I told her “She’s dead, but she came back for a minute to say goodbye properly. Don’t you see her?”

“Kellie, I’m sorry, but that is a purse.”

“No, it’s my cat,” I sobbed, but it did turn back into a purse, so I set it down. While I had been crying, I’d removed my glasses & now couldn’t find them. Christopher & I were looking for them, then saw my roommate had them in her hands. She said “Do you need these?” & then snapped them in half. We were shocked. His blonde friends came out cackling & said “Now you can never leave!” My roommate said she had a migraine but I could tell she wanted to stay with the blondes. I knew something was wrong so I shouted “Run!” & started running.

I was half way down a walk way/gang plank in the stupid shopping centre when I realized Christopher wasn’t behind me. A father & his kid told me “You’ve been sprinkled with poison. You need to rinse off,” so I wandered back looking for a shower. I ran into Christopher & he said, “I’m so sorry. My friends have become evil witches. I’m trying to talk sense into them.”

They were already closing around me, so I just tried to stand in the shower with my clothes on while they hovered over me with hands like claws. Then a little blonde angel boy appeared in an orb of white light & said “Don’t be afraid! They cannot hurt you now.”

The witches backed off & the little angel boy came closer to me. Then he turned into this guy:

The Simpsons’ social worker/black angel, Gabriel.

He then said “You and Christopher must vanquish this evil. Also you were black all along. Behold!”

And I looked down at my fingers & they started to go from my usual pallor to darker & I looked in the mirror & I was this girl from Bones

& I turned to everyone & said “I knew I was black!” And my roommate handed me a Happy Meal & I said “I can’t eat this; I have celiac disease,” & the angel Gabriel said “Yes, you can, child. You’re black now.” So I shoveled that hamburger, bun & all, in my face while Christopher said “That doesn’t make any sense. African-Americans are also susceptible to the genetics of…” & then the alarm went off & I woke up.

Now that I’m watching The Walking Dead, my dreams are clearly influenced, except I don’t believe in zombies so my brain invents even more horrifying scenarios.

In last night’s dream I was living in the messiest of dorms. I think it was Georgetown. A ginger dude I met in the hall had a clear & endearing crush on my roommate, who I’m pretty sure was my friend Nurse Rachel. I jokingly said he needed to step up his game if he wanted her attention, & his face instantly changed. His eyes glassed over & he broke out in a sweat. He didn’t actually become a zombie, but everything he did after demonstrated a sublimation of his free will & motion.

I figured out, after a couple of scenarios involving thinking that I wanted a coffee & that traffic in Hollywood was bugging me, that he responded to my every whim even if it would kill him. The guy would show up in a panic & sweat to take care of my every thought.

He was in obvious distress & so was I. I got to a point where I tried hard to stop thinking of anything so he wouldn’t show up. I begged him to stop bringing me things. Dhino at work even tried to bar him from coming in to hand me food or clothes or shoes. I was in tears seeing his haggard, exhausted face. I gave everything he brought me away.

Toward the end of the dream, it occurred to me to pray to God to restore this young man’s free will, which he had given to me without my permission or desire. And immediately he was free. He wandered off in a daze & I never saw him again. Then I woke up.

The most significant item in this dream, to me, is that I was drinking a non-gluten free beer, which is the first time I’ve consumed a gluteny item in a dream since my celiac diagnosis in 2009. Indeed, my paranoia about getting sick again is so ingrained that even when Eliza Dushku took me to a pastry buffet in one dream, I refused.

But you guys no doubt will find the rest much more interesting.

I was asked to come down to a Mexican border town to meet a prominent Mexican psychiatrist to assist in the diagnosis and treatment of a famous American. The doctor met me for the cervesa (which I did order “light”…evidently I can’t not dream I’m off my diet), but said he’d rather discuss the case in his office. We walked down the street to a beautiful old stucco building and went inside.

His office was a richly appointed typical psychiatrist’s office, with shelves of books and a couch or two covered in fine Corinthian leather. My brain is nothing if not informed by Ricardo Mantelban. He took out a file and handed it to me with great ceremony. I sat in a chair and started reading:

Subject displays profound fear of alien abduction. He states he has been taken by aliens in the past and probed anally with a long, glowing, white instrument. His obsession and paranoia over this instrument has caused him to experience great psychological discomfort when rewatching Star Wars. He presents because Star Wars viewing is an integral part of his identity, and he wishes to be free of this distress so he can return to his normal life activities.

The photo inside the file and the name on the file was Wil Wheaton. I looked up at the doctor and he looked at me with wild eyes.

“Chupacabras, Miss Adan?”

I chuckled. “Maybe Star Wars overload.”

“¿Creas en las chupacabras, Señorita?”

“No, doctor. But the patient clearly should be submitted to involuntary psychiatric incarceration & observation.”

“Then it is as I feared. This is the course of action I had decided upon, but I needed your help to get your government’s permission. I will write up the order now.”

He scrawled the order in pencil on a legal pad, which was apparently good enough for the US government. In a joint effort between American authorities and Federales, we finally cornered Wheaton on a dock at gun point & took him into protective custody, for his own good. Myself & the doctor asked the law men to please go carefully with the patient, as his fear of chupacabras was so great that any authority figures might spook him. They locked him in the back of a car & he pressed his hands against the window, screaming “No, not again!”

As y’all know from Twitter, I dream about the apocalypse a lot. It’s not the apocalypse of Revelation, but a post-catastrophic earthquake kind of to-do which is always survived in good humour and with many tacos. I’ve compiled a list of my own post apocalyptic revelations below, entirely based on my dreams:

-When The Big One hits California, all the homes on the Malibu cliffs slide backwards into the valley, not forward toward the ocean. Sorry, rich peeps. It’s oddly a lot of fun to be in one of those homes as it slides, & everyone survives with cuts and scrapes.

–Recoil is the soundtrack of the apocalypse, but to be fair it’s the soundtrack to pretty much everything.

-My friends & I always survive. We are well armed, protect the women & children, drink a lot of beer, & eat a lot of tacos. Until the gasoline runs out, we drive around in a Hummer helping people. Then we have a boat. Then we just walk everywhere in giant formations, cracking wise & getting lost.

-Post apocalyptic people are mainly about helping each other. There is no cellular service. We gather mostly to party. People have no existential angst. Nobody whines. All battery power is used to run music playing devices.

-There seems to be an unlimited supply of canned goods.

-Everybody has a dog. Cats are inexplicably absent.

-The sombrero becomes popular as the world’s supply of sunblock runs out.

-Most people live in portable tents & go where the party is.

–Meredith Dake looks immaculately groomed all the time & can pick off a rabbit with a rifle from 500 yards. Mmm, rabbit taco.